"Welcome to our shop. Call me if you need anything at all" The shopkeeper said, greeting them as they came in, though he appeared to be busy with another customer. A customer who appeared to recognize one of them.
"Lan Cai'er? I was unaware you were back in the capital." The young man said as he saw Cai'er coming in.
"I on the other hand am not surprised at all to see you here, Young Master Qing." Cai'er said in a teasing voice. "I see you still haven't shaken your gambling addiction."
"It isn't gambling, I merely enjoy raising Spirit Beasts, that's all." The man said, his gentlemanly expression not changing despite Cai'er's teasing.
"Is this boy one of big sister's friends?" Anqiu asked, looking at the young nobleman with curious eyes.
"No. The two of us are pleasantly neutral, which is the closest one can become to being a friend of a Qing." Cai'er said. "The Qing clan are the most aggressively neutral clan in the kingdom. Because their family controls the water ways, they have the potential to wield more political and economic power than even the King, which is why they have a policy of avoiding any sort of situations that might force their hand. Whether it is friendships or political marriages, the Qing Clan does not take part, save for with the daughters of the royal family. And don't let his pleasantness fool you. He is simply as forbidden of making enemies as he is of making friends."
"As usual, Lady Lan has a way with words. Though she isn't wrong." Young Master Qing admitted. "The two of us went to school together for a while, and as her father had little to do with politics, we managed to be pleasantly acquainted with one another."
"Is that so?" Lingyue said, finding the entire thing kind of weird, and more than a little sad.
Because of his family position, the young man was forced to live without real friends?
He looked to be around 17 years old, placing him right between Lingyue and Cai'er in age, and had the kind of softer features that would make a man popular in this world. It was sad to think of such a person having to be suspicious of everyone who wanted to get close to him.
"Now, are you going to introduce your friends or continue to merely mock my chosen hobbies?" Young Master Qing asked.
"I suppose I should be polite. Lingyue, Anqiu, this is Qing Longshung, the young master of the Qing Clan. Young Master Qing, these two are Ye Lingyue and her little sister Ye Anqiu. Oh, and that over there is Ye Lingyue's servant, Meng Yao." Cai'er said, introducing Anqiu as Lingyue's sister, rather than her old family name.
"It's nice to meet you." Lingyue and Anqiu said, bowing politely.
"It is nice to meet you as well." The young man replied pleasantly. "Forgive me for my ignorance, but I do not recall there being a noble family Ye around Glass City. Do you hail from the southern mountains?"
"Um… We aren't from any noble family. We are just commoners. Lady Lan Cai'er was just kind enough to be friends with us regardless of social standings." Lingyue said, a little embarrassed.
"Ah, forgive my assumptions. I didn't mean to embarrass you." Qing said, his general behavior was unchanged by the knowledge that Lingyue was a commoner. If anything, Lingyue felt as if he had relaxed his guard a little. "And what would the names of your two spirit beasts be?"
Lingyue blinked before remembering that Mitsuna and Uri were still on her shoulders. "Oh, these two are Uri and Mitsuna." She said, introducing the lion and the fox.
"They are quite beautiful. I've never seen any others like them. What species are they?" Qing asked, reaching out towards Uri who hissed angrily in response and lashed out at the young man's hand.
Qing looked at the clawed hand, surprised to see a trickle of blood from where the fox had clawed him.
It didn't hurt, but as a Upper Celestial Realm fighter himself, his skin should have been too tough for a baby spirit beast to pierce. If the little guy was already this powerful, what would that mean for when he was full grown?
"Uri!" Lingyue said, scolding the little fox.
*Squeak!* 'He isn't worthy of touching us!' Uri protested.
"Sorry. He isn't very friendly towards strangers." Lingyue apologized.
"It's fine. But I think I can get him to warm up to me a little." Qing said, reaching inside of his sleeve and drawing out what appeared to be a long stick of jerky.
Immediately Uri's hissing stopped and his eyes darted between the food and the young man, as if debating whether or not the treat was worth his dignity. In the end, the little white fox was in Qing's lap, snacking on the jerky while Qing patted his head and checked his ears. Uri didn't notice how Mitsuna was shaking her head in amusement at him… until she was offered a treat as well.
While the Flame Animal might not require food, that didn't mean she didn't enjoy it.
"Alright. Let's pick little Anqiu out an egg." Cai'er declared, hands on hips, not caring who saw her.
"Yeah." Anqiu agreed vibrently.
"You two." Lingyue chuckled as Meng Yao rolled his eyes, embarrassed to be seen with them in public.
"It's hard to believe she is a Titled Princess, isn't it?" Qing quipped upon seeing Lingyue's expression.
"Huh!? Cai'er is a Princess!?" Lingyue said in open shock, before blushing and covering her mouth. In her surprise, she had forgotten to be polite.
"You don't need to be so surprised." Cai'er said, waving the matter off. "It really isn't a big deal. Two years ago, the Queen Dowager gave me a Princess title under the pretense of recognizing my achievement in the Royal Tournament, as a way of showing that she supported the Civilian Faction, since my father was a commoner born General."
"You did place 10th in that tournament, when competing against men who were all of Upper class backgrounds. You were called the greatest black horse of the century, defeating even a Dan Core Fighter to secure your spot." Qing said as a sort of flattery.
While Lan Cai'er hadn't been the strongest in the competition, even getting there was an achievement, as she didn't grow up with the same advantages as others who had made it in. Qing would include himself in that number, as though his Cultivation was about the same as Lan Cai'er's when he was three years younger than her, he hadn't put in nearly the same amount of effort and had been carried along by his families finances from an early age.
"But I didn't win. I didn't earn my title." Lan Cai'er said bitterly.
"...You earned it far more than most others who have been getting it recently." Qing said.
"Ugh, don't remind me." Cai'er said, shivering. She looked actually disgusted for a moment, before the expression vanished and was replaced with a wide grin. "Always, if you are done dragging up the past, we need our secret weapon to get to work finding us the best eggs."
"Huh!?" Lingyue said in surprise as the older girl grabbed her shoulders.
"Don't give me that. You were able to spot a defective Aloeswood from more than dozens of feet away but just your gut feeling. I'm sure you can find which eggs are the best." Cai'er said with a whink.
"Isn't that cheating?" Lingyue asked with a frown.
"The only reason that the stores do business like this is because they can't determine which ones are the best. They don't have any right to complain if you can do it better than they can." Cai'er said. "Besides, don't you want Anqiu to get the best future pet possible, right?"
Lingyue sighed, not able to find fault in Cai'er logic before taking a deep breath.
She raised her Dying Will slightly, not enough to activate her flames, but enough to help her start parsing the information coming to her from her Hyper Intuition. The room had nearly a hundred thousand eggs, most of them giving off their own unique energy signatures. But after a moment, the information started to become more clear and Lingyue started to walk through the store. "That one. ...That one there. ...The blue one with speckles."
Qing watched with interest as Lingyue walked through the store, seeming to lock on to certain individual eggs. Some were from those labeled 'Superior Quality' while others were just 'Normal Quality' eggs. The difference being in the shopkeepers ability to guess as to the rank and likelihood of hatching. The 'Superior Quality' ones had at least a 50% chance of hatching properly and would normally contain a beast of Rank 3 or higher, while the Normal quality only had an estimated 25% chance or more of hatching would usually be Rank 1 or 2 in quality, with a few rare higher levels.
There was of course a price difference. 'Superior Quality' cost 500 gold coins, while 'Normal Quality' was only 250 gold coins.
After identifying 7 eggs, Lingyue stopped in front of several large crates of eggs in one area of the store, easily 50 thousand eggs in total. "Why are all of them just stacked here like this?" Lingyue asked, since all of the others had been neatly displayed separately.
"They are the 'Unidentified Eggs'." Qing provided. "They are the eggs that either the store couldn't judge or judged to have a less than 20% chance of successfully hatching. Most of them have about a 5% chance of hatching properly and would be lower quality Spirit Beasts. The benefit being that they are cheaper and 50 gold coins, but most don't like the odds and don't bother with them."
"...Is that so." Lingyue said, looking sadly at the stacks of eggs before starting to dig through them. She took four eggs out of the boxes and set them aside. "These ones are good too."
In the end, she picked out 12 eggs in total, 3 Superior Quality, 5 Normal Quality, and 4 Unidentified Quality.
"These should be the best in the store, and I think that one is twins, though it is hard to tell." Lingyue said, pointing towards one of the eggs she had picked from the Unidentified bin.
She certainly didn't sound too sure of herself. Qing wondered if it was all just some kind of strange act. But Cai'er seemed to have full confidence in Lingyue's choices regardless.
"If Lingyue says it, then it must be true. Shopkeeper, we'll be hatching these 12!"
"Huh!? I thought we were only getting Anqiu one pet!" Lingyue said in confusion.
"Well, how is she supposed to pick the one she likes the best if we don't hatch them? Besides, there are other people who we can give Spirit Beasts to as gifts. I'm sure your mother would love the company." Cai'er said. "Not to mention you could use a little more defense at your side too, besides just Mitsuna."
"Hm… I guess you're right." Lingyue agreed, even as Uri started to loudly object to being dismissed.
Qing was surprised when rather than Cai'er pulling out her purse to pay for the eggs, it was Lingyue who seemed to have the money.
Granted, he had been wondering since when Cai'er could be so flippant about money, but it was still shocking that a self proclaimed commoner had the kind of coin to buy multiple Spirit Beasts.
With the 12 eggs, plus the fee to use the magic to hatch them quickly, the total cost was 2570 gold coins, what would be a year's salary for a low rank official, but only chuckled about it.
As the hatching process took around an hour, they were all simply waiting around for the eggs to be done.
Qing listened to them chatting as he continued to observe Mitsuna, Uri, and their mysterious owner.
After some original nervousness, the girls became comfortable in front of him, and spoke with Cai'er in a remarkably casual manner. It seemed that beyond mere friendship, the famed Princess treated the pair as her surrogate younger sisters.
Watching them innocently joking around awoke an envy in Qing's heart that he thought he had long outgrown.
As the heir to the Qing House, he had to remain neutral. This meant that he couldn't form any sort of connection with anyone who might try to compromise with that neutrality. He was never permitted to have friends with anyone outside of the clan, and if someone was set to leave, he had to cut all ties with them, even if they were his own family.
When he was little more than a child, his servants would routinely get fired if his father felt like any of them had managed to get close to him, in order to teach him the cost of neutrality.
It was the reason that he started to collect Spirit Beasts. Because they were the only friends he was permitted to have.
He had long told himself that they were just as good, if not better, than the real thing.
*Meow* Mitsuna gave a sad meow, rubbing her head against the young man's leg. Qing looked down at the baby lioness, seeing her metallic orange eyes shining up at him with understanding and sympathy. He smiled softly, patting the cat's head before looking up to see Lingyue looking at him with eyes that matched her pet's. Eyes that seemed to pierce the soul.
'She knows.' The thought wormed its way inside of his head, making him feel ashamed and exposed. The undoubting belief that this girl somehow knew his innermost thoughts lasted until she looked away from him, leaving him wondering if he imagined it all.
The hour passed and the shopkeeper came to Qing, shifting nervously, while carrying a baby Spirit Beasts, one that Qing immediately recognized as a Silver Fang Ram, though a baby one. "I am sorry, Young Master, but it appears that the eggs you purchased only gave birth to a 2nd rank Spirit Beast."
Normally, when a nobleman got such rotten luck from a Superior Quality egg, they would throw a fit, but the Young Master Qing didn't mind so much. "It's fine. While a high rank Spirit Beast would be nice, I do not mind this either." Qing said as he reached out to take the baby goat Spirit Beast.
Even as a newly hatched child, it's fur was a beautiful silver and it had the odd tusks that had gained its name, though they were smaller than they would one day be.
"It's so cute." Lingyue said, as the baby goat gave a small baying sound.
Qing silently agreed before bringing out some of the milk he had prepared for the newborn. This earned a bit of panic from Lingyue as she realized that since they were purchasing the Spirit Beasts on a whim, they didn't have any such preparations.
Luckily, they were still in the middle of the market, and getting such things as food would be easy. There was no need to panic, the young master had simply done this enough times to be prepared beforehand.
Qing almost laughed at the girl's panic.
He decided to stick around to watch what would happen with the girls' eggs, since they hadn't started too much after his own, and was rewarded with a few minutes later, the shopkeeper came out with a pale face. "Con...Congratulations, Princess Lan. Your eggs have hatched into two 6th rank Spirit Beasts, ten 5th rank Spirit Beasts and a 4th rank Spirit Beast."
Qing's jaw nearly dropped. This outcome went beyond what could possibly be explained by mere luck. Lingyue must have managed to zero in on every single high quality Spirit Beast egg in the entire store.
But how had she been able to tell? She had done nothing to judge the eggs' quality. She'd hardly even looked at them. So how could she have known?
Contrary to her claims of being a normal commoner, Lingyue was not a simple individual.
"...Wait, that is 13 Spirit Beasts in total. There were only 12 eggs." Qing said, glancing at the girl. Had she been right about one of the eggs being twins? Twins among Spirit Beasts were far rarer than among humans, and high ranking Spirit Beast too.
"That is because one of the eggs belonged to some Yin Yang Carps." The shopkeeper said drily. Qing took in a short breath at the name.
"Wow. Talk about striking gold. Way to go, Little Yue." Lan Cai'er said, ruffling the girl's hair a little.
"Yin Yang Carp? What's that?" Lingyue asked, not knowing any Spirit Beast by that name.
"Yin Yang Carp are a rare breed of 5th rank Spirit Beasts that are always born as twins, a boy and a girl from the same egg. While they aren't any good for fighting, they pair help greatly with one's cultivation. The boy will absorb Yin Energy and the girl Yang Energy, which they then mixed together perfectly and share with their bonded partner." Qing explained. "It is one of the few ways to accelerate your progression between the Upper Celestial and Dan Core Realms without damaging your future progress."
At the moment, Qing was roughly a year away from advancing into the Dan Core Realm, but if he had those fish, he could reach it within the week. He wanted to offer to buy them from her, but Lingyue already demonstrated that money wasn't an issue for her.
No one in their right minds would part with such valuable things easily…
"In that case, big sister should have them." Lingyue said with a smile.
...What?
"Are you sure? You do know how valuable they are, right? And your mother is also in the Upper Celestial Realm. If I bond with them, then she wouldn't be able to." Cai'er said, uncomfortable with accepting such a gift.
"I'm sure. My mama has a lot of pride in being able to get as far as she has without such help, and she's really close to advancing anyways, and I've already reached the Big Dan Core Realm." Lingyue said.
...What!?
Lingyue looked like she was only 13 years old, how could she possibly be a Dan Core Realm cultivator?
"If you insist, but now I feel like I owe little sister even more." Cai'er said with a mixture of gratitude and embarrassment.
"Princess Lan, forgive my prudence, but would you be willing to sell those Yin Yang Carps to me." Qing asked.
"Forgive me Young Master Qing, but it would be improper of me to exchange such a thoughtful gift." Cai'er replied, her words polite but her grin exposing her real feelings. 'Not in a million years.'
"I suppose it wouldn't be." He reluctantly agreed.
His heart was filled with envy, but he could admit to himself that Lan Cai'er was the more deserving recipient. He had watched her work hard over the years, despite the unfair treatment she received for her parents' backgrounds. He would not begrudge her this.
...He wasn't allowed to hold a grudge against her. That would not be neutral.
After that was settled, the other 11 Spirit Beasts were brought out and Anqiu was allowed to pick whichever ones she wanted, since there was no reason to stick to only one. The little girl held each of the Spirit Beasts, looking up towards the sky as she did so before deciding on three of them.
The 6th rank Earth Turning Boar.
The 5th rank Moonlight Eagle.
The 5th rank Red Mist Panther.
"Red Mist Panther?" Lingyue was surprised by the name. "Does it have something to do with the Immortal Red Mist Alchemist?"
"According to legend, yes." Qing said as he watched Anqiu stroking the head of the spirit beast, which was already the size of a full grown house cat and covered in golden red furs. "They say that the Immortal Red Mist created a Lion-type Alchemy Beast that was so realistic that it could actually produce its own children. The Red Mist Panthers are supposed to be the descendants of that beast."
"...A lion huh?" Cai'er said, trying her best not to eye Mitsuna meaningfully.
Next, they talked about how to divide the remaining 8 Spirit Beasts.
Lingyue picked out the 4th rank Bixi Turtle for herself, saying that she wanted it for nostalgic reasons. While the weakest of the group in terms of growth, the Bixi Turtles were similar to serpent Spirit Beasts, in that they were known to keep growing for thousands of years until they reached the level of a Sacred Beast. Some even claimed that they were actually dragon variants themselves in possession of the Water and Earth Elements.
The servant, Meng Yao, was also allowed to pick one, though the girls gave him strange looks when he chose the 5th rank Blue Boyi, a creature with the head of a goat, nine fox tails and several eyes growing all over its body. Even as a baby, it didn't look very cute, and it's appearance wouldn't improve with age. Though maybe cuteness isn't something that everyone looks for in Spirit Beasts.
Lingyue also gifted a 5th rank Four Winged Owl to Cai'er, as well as the Yin Yang Carps, and they all agreed to give the Winged Pig to her father as a joke, and a beautiful Onyx Lynx for Lingyue's own mother.
This left only three more remaining; the 5th rank Fire Red Panda, the 5th rank Evil Eyed Monkey, and the 6th rank Emerald Dragon Horse.
"Are you seriously telling me that you don't want to have a Dragon Horse?" Cai'er said as they all collectively huddled around the baby foal.
It looked like a horse with bright green scales that surrounded its body and a mane of dark black fur around its head and hoofs. Even though it was newly hatched and from an egg that was no bigger than a volleyball, it was already over two hundred pounds and bigger than any normal dog.
"He is beautiful, but when am I going to need a mount? I don't even know how to ride a horse." Lingyue said with a shake of the head. The only thing she'd ever ridden was an airbike and she didn't want to go through the process of learning to do something like that again. "It feels a little wasteful for me to bond with him."
Cai'er leaned in and whispered into Lingyue's ear. "Flying around in the middle of the city would be even more of an attention grabber than riding a Spirit Beast. You know that, right?" Cai'er reasoned. Lingyue wasn't even sure if what Cai'er was saying was true or not anymore.
It was hard for Lingyue to tell when people who had her best intentions at heart were trying to deceive her, because it didn't show up in her Hyper Intuition. That was how come Reborn could always trick her no matter how much her Intuition progressed.
"Don't worry. I will teach you everything you need to know about riding a mount." Reborn said, as if sensing her thoughts. He was dressed up as a racing jockey and was playing with a horse whip.
"You are the last person I want to learn that from!" Lingyue cried in panic, surprising everyone around her.
The baby dragon horse gave a whine and pressed its head against Lingyue, small crackling sparks going through his mane as his energy discharged through his body. Lingyue looked into his big, doe-like eyes as he looked up at her before sighing.
"Alright, I guess you are mine then." Lingyue said, patting the boy's still slightly moist mane. "Then the only ones left are the red panda and the monkey, right? So how about the monkey can go to Meng Yao and Young Master Qing can have the Red Panda."
"Excuse me?" Qing said, surprised at being included. He was currently holding said red panda, checking its health and giving it some milk. Despite being newborn, it was energetic a curious, and Lingyue had noticed Qing's eyes as he watched the little guy.
"You seemed sad about not being included, and they seem to really like you, so…" Lingyue said awkwardly.
Qing looked for the girl to the little Spirit Beast playing around with the bottle he was feeding it from. "Miss, I can't accept such a gift. It goes against my family's c…"
"Just say you have no choice but to accept it or else you would be insulting the Lan family. Or you can just not tell them at all and this can be a secret." Lingyue said, interrupting him. "I understand remaining neutral and wanting to avoid hurting people unintentionally, but it feels sad to have to be alone, without others who care about you."
The Young Master didn't say anything for a moment before slowly nodding his head. "I'll take good care of him."
"Thanks." Lingyue said with a smile, of which he had to fight to avert his eyes.
Was this to be his first moment of weakness? The moment that he would look back upon when wondering when his family's millennium long tradition of neutrality came tumbling down?
At that moment, he didn't really care. He just felt glad to have been included.
I don't think I ever made it clear, but Wu Cheng is only 17. He isn't old. An age different of about 3 years isn't even weird in our world, let alone theirs.
This was another bit that stretched on longer than I thought it would.